Whale Watching Trips on June 19, 2009

9 am Whale Watch - Joanne

We left the harbor at 9 AM with gusty SE winds, rough/rolly seas and rain.  It rained throughout most of our trip and time on whales but that didn’t discourage the activity of the whales or the enthusiasm of our passengers.  We started on the SW corner and found one lone humpback.  Shortly after our arrival, we got word of dozens off whales off Race Pt.  We ended up surrounded by feeding whales--including kick, bubble net, bubble clouds, open mouths, dragging.  We even had some breaching and tail lobbing.  There were thousands of birds, including greater, sooty and cory's shearwaters, wilson's storm petrels, jaegars, and gulls.  It was estimated by Ian we had 2500+ birds in huge rafts of hundreds (see Ian’s report below)

2 pm Whale Watch - Joanne

On our afternoon trip we had less rain but more fog.  We ended up in the same place with just as many whales, but all low profile.  The humpbacks were taking one breath and diving.  We had a group of finbacks circling, including a pair that became a trio.  We also had the finback named Loon.  We ended our trip going a bit farther east to an area with three different whales all breaching and tail breaching. We had one HUGE breach next to the boat from a cow (Blackhole) and then a close pass by the pair.

Seabird Update on Friday, June 19, 2009

Seabird Report on June 20, 2009 - Ian Davies

This summer I am volunteering for NECWA (New England Coastal Wildlife Alliance www.necwa.org), in partnership with Captain John Boats and Bridgewater State College, doing pelagic bird surveys of Stellwagen Bank based off of the Captain John Boat whale-watches from Plymouth. Today was the third time that I've been out, and by far the birdiest of the three.

Almost all of the activity was right off of Race Point, most of it probably scope-able on a day with good visibility. The highlight of the day was pulling three Cory's Shearwaters out of all the Greaters, with one bird on the water with a flock of 24 Greaters, and the two others in the water and then flying in the mayhem of ~2000 shearwaters.

 This morning most of the trip had been pretty slow on the way out, and as we headed for the Race, bypassing the SW corner of Stellwagen, that decision really made the day. We had 30-40 humpbacks feeding actively, including almost every surface behavior: lobtailing, kick feeding, bubble cloud and bubble net feeding, tail and full head breaches, open mouth feeding, you name it!  Besides the wonderful cetacean show there were around two thousand shearwaters in the area, a number that I came to after averaging multiple counts, counted by 20's.  Also around were tons of storm-petrels, and a few jaegers, making this about as good as it gets.  Manx Shearwaters were conspicuously absent, as they were on Wednesday.

 Another interesting thing about today was the number of tubenoses in Plymouth County on the way back, far more than the other couple times, and more than any other trip I've taken out of Plymouth Harbor, including storm-petrels and Sooty Shearwaters easily visible from Duxbury Beach!

Pictures, including Cory's, canbe seen at: http://picasaweb.google.com/goshawk227/CaptJohnBoatTrips2009#

Whale watching trips on June, 17, 2009

9:00 AM whale watch on the Capt. John Boats

Blue skies today!!  Light winds and sunshine this morning as we left the dock.  I was also lucky enough to have two interns and of course Erica was aboard as a deck hand, so I felt like a queen.  Our first encounter was with a mother, calf pair and although we couldn't get a complete photo of the tail, we tentatively believe it was Nile.  We moved on and came into an area loaded with bait and bluefish.  Probably two-dozen fishing boats in the area also.  There were 6-7 whales in that area feeding near the surface but keeping a low profile.  We never observed a fluke but did witness 3 of them feeding together in a circular pattern.  

Thanks, Diane

9 AM and 2 PM whale watches on Capt. John Boats

SE swell increasing to 4 feet as they day progressed.  Winds light and variable in the morning and increasing to 5 to 10 knots in the afternoon. All of our sightings were on the southern part of the bank.  In the morning, we had quite a few whales on the corner, but all were making long dives.  We did start our trip with Nile and calf and then finished with Pinpoint and Echo who were surface feeding.  In the afternoon, the whales were again low profile and included two separate pairs - Milkweed and Tornado and then Salt and Orbit.  No surface feeding was observed in the afternoon.  We did see a few breaches here and there, but nothing that lasted very long.

Pelagic birds included juvenile northern gannets, WIlson's storm petrels, sooty shearwaters, greater shearwaters, laughing gulls were also observed offshore. 

Best, Krill